VIDEO: John McCain Tries To Explain To Ted Cruz How Democracy Works

This afternoon, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered a civics
lesson to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other conservatives
pursuing a scorched earth approach to defunding Obamacare. That
is, sometimes, when you're in the minority, you lose:

We fought as hard as we could, in a fair and honest manner,
and we lost. And we lost, one of the reasons is because we were
in the minority. And, in democracies, uh, almost always,
the majority governs and passes legislation.

McCain's remarks followed Cruz's 21-hour speech urging the
Senate to block any bill keeping the government open that does
not defund Obamacare.

McCain also added that "elections have consequences" and
Republicans should "respect the outcome" of the 2012 election, in
which Republicans campaigned on repealing Obamacare but could not
defeat Obama:

I campaigned all over America for two months, everywhere I
could. And in every single campaign rally I said "we had to
repeal and replace Obamacare." Well, the people spoke. They
spoke, much to my dismay, but they spoke and they re-elected the
President of the United States. No that doesn’t mean that we give
up our efforts to try to replace and repair Obamacare. But it
does mean elections have consequences and those elections were
clear, in a significant majority, that the majority of the
American people supported the President of the US and renewed his
stewardship of this country. I don’t like it, it’s
not something that I wanted the outcome to be. But I think all of
us should respect the outcome of elections, which reflects the
will of the people.

Acknowledging that losing elections can lead to the
implementation of policies you dislike might seem like common
sense, but it is a hotly contested notion among conservative
activists. Earlier this month, McCain
hinted that he will retire when his term is up in 2016, which
leaves him freer to dispense #realtalk like this.

McCain also said comparing
Obamacare to the Nazi threat, as Cruz did during his long speech,
"does a great disservice" to Americans who fought against the
Nazis, such as his father and grandfather.